One of media’s most trusted voices ended his anchor position on December 23, 2008. Brit Hume signed off for the final time on Fox News’ Special Report with Brit Hume. Hume says he plans to spend more time with the three “G’s”: God, granddaughters and golf.

I began to watch Fox News in 1998, when Fox trailed CNN and MSNBC in the ratings. I really appreciated Hume’s preparation and integrity in reporting the day’s news. Did I always agree with the way in which Brit Hume carried out his craft? Yes, pretty much.

I remembered Hume on ABC News in the 1980’s when he was a correspondent in Washington, DC, so he was already a trusted voice. Certainly, his delivery was deadpan, but I wasn’t tuning in to see Jay Leno. I wanted the news and wanted to know that the news I was getting was factual, not twisted to fit some agenda or being promoted simply to create a story. Hume was professional and yet touched a chord with many people like me, who live in flyover country.

Often, during the Fox All Stars segment, Hume was often clarifying any subject brought up by the panel, making certain the viewer understood to what the event or example referred. Hume would also be quick to squelch any subterfuge by the members of the panel who might be attempting to spin rather than give their political opinions. Furthermore, I never found out later that Hume’s reporting was deliberately lacking in any details necessary for me to shape an informed opinion. He was also careful to steer clear of elevating clearly media driven stories.

Brit Hume was what many of us believed the media were supposed to be: fair, balanced and unafraid. Most of us grew up believing the myth that journalists were constantly striving to be objective in reporting. Hume did his best to live up to that ideal, which is truly the best way to present a story and allow the audience to draw their own conclusion. His influence upon the staff of the news team at Fox News is evident. His replacement, Brett Baier, appears as trustworthy in his reporting as Hume was.

It would be foolish to think that the media would gravitate in this direction of news presentation. The failed 1980’s night owl show “NBC News Overnight” is alive and well in MSNBC, complete with condescending commentary and overt cheerleading for political candidates. But Brit Hume has left his mark on the most watched cable news network, and that is a positive thing. Fox News grew to that position under Hume’s watch, and that is the most important legacy Hume built. Thanks Britt.

After waiting nearly eight years and maddening the current administration’s supporters, Vice President Dick Cheney finally made his most forceful defense of the Bush presidency. Speaking with Chris Wallace on the December 21, 2008 “Fox News Sunday,” Cheney blasted incoming VP Joe Biden for comments Biden had made during his campaign for Barack Obama.

Click here to read the FoxNews.com article

It is fascinating how Biden perceives Cheney as the most dangerous Vice President we’ve ever had, whilst he will be serving under what will most likely be the most dangerous President the United States has ever had. Is this not the same Joe Biden that warned us of the inexperience of Barack Obama in the Democrat primaries? Say it ain’t so, Joe!!!

The fact of the matter is, Biden was an afterthought in the Obama transition until last week, when it became apparent that poor old Joe was being left out of any decisions. Now, the holder of The Office Of Vice President Elect (may he also be praised) is trying to make himself relevant by making the point that the office of VP is relatively irrelevant. So why will we be paying you $221,000 next year, Vice President Elect Biden?

Cheney is correct in his assertion that history will treat the Bush presidency much better than his contemporaries do now. The frustrating thing is that neither Cheney nor Bush made an effective defense of the actions to protect this country from foreign and domestic enemies when they had the bully pulpit. Reagan repeatedly and effectively went over the Congress’ and medias’ collective heads and communicated effectively with the people of this country. With a few exceptions (the case for the Iraq War being one), this administration has been unable to sell a bottle of water to a man dying of thirst. Their inability to make a coherent case on a number of issues has been one of the biggest contributing factors to the nation’s lack of trust in the Republican Party to lead.

In then-Governor Bush’s acceptance speech at the 2000 Republican Convention, Bush said over and over (with reference to Clinton and Gore), “They have not led, we will.” In most instances, people fail to lead by what they do, preferring only to lead by what they say and leave the deeds undone. In the case of the Bush administration, the leading was done by the deeds, but was woefully lacking in words. As a result, a young, energetic communicator with the gift of eloquence is our near term future. Too bad he will set back the cause of conservatism at least 50 years.

President Elect Barack Hussein Obama has been blessed with a smooth transition so far. He has met with the sitting President and been assured of a trouble-free and an informed exchange of power, made scores of Cabinet appointments, pontificated from the pulpit of The Office of the President Elect, and squeezed in a smoke or two as well as a few basketball games.
Now let your minds go back to 2000 at this time. George W. Bush had only made a handful of Cabinet appointments by December 19, 2000. What? Why was that? Because he’s a monkey? Doofus? Idiot? Balaam’s donkey? has the IQ of cordwood?
On this date in 2000, George W. Bush had only held The Powerful Office of President Elect for seven days. Al Gore had demanded recounts in not the whole state but four primarily Democrat counties in Florida. Bush won the first recount on Wednesday morning, November 8. Remember, now, that’s the second time Bush won Florida in consecutive days. However, Gore, knowing then what Al Franken knows now, realized that the more recounts that take place, the more Democrat votes that will appear out of thin air, and kept demanding further recounts.
Even more fascinating, people like Michael Moore seemed to discover for the first time ever that our Presidential elections were determined by the Electoral College, as though Bush had implemented this wicked institution just for 2000 to steal an election.
As a result, Bush’s cabinet appointments were delayed for more than a month. His inauguration was marked with sophisticated protestors and classy rioters. Bill Clinton didn’t even give Bush the phone number of the pizza girl. And members of Clinton’s staff five-finger discounted White House trimmings and computer keyboard “W’s.” They didn’t even leave any Rose Law Firm records behind.
Less than eleven months later, the terrorist attacks on 9-11 would dwarf the 168 people killed by Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City as the worst terrorist attack on American soil. The plot was hatched by Osama Bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a meeting in 1996. The planning stages of the plan took place on Clinton’s watch.
Eight years later, Bush is pledging Obama an uncomplicated shift of power, going so far as fading all the heat on the economic recession. Bush is showing more Presidential class by going the extra mile for Obama’s transition than either living Democrat President did for their successors.
After the Florida election results were certified, Bush gave a speech on December 13, 2000, in which he proclaimed he was going to reach across the aisle to unify a divided America and declared “the President of the United States is the President of every single American, of every race, and every background.” How did that work out for you, Mr. President?

“You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore.” Oh, not so fast, Mr. President.

When Richard Nixon uttered those words after losing his 1962 bid for the Governorship of California, I doubt that he had any idea just how long people would be kicking him around. Even worse, I know for certain that Nixon would have been shocked to learn that over 45 years later, Opie Taylor (played by Ron Howard) would be the one doing the kicking. When Nixon held that press conference, The Andy Griffith Show was one of the most popular shows of the time.

Howard, Andy Griffith and Henry Winkler all reprised their roles as Opie Taylor/Richie Cunningham, Andy Taylor, and Arthur Fonzerelli to campaign for Barack Obama in the 2008 election.

Click here for Howard’s campaign video for Barack Obama.

To follow up his Fonzi scheme, Howard has released his movie Frost/Nixon, which is based on British television broadcaster David Frost’s 1977 interview with Nixon. Of course, since Nixon was a Republican president, he is fair game. Oliver Stone practically wet his britches to release his “W” even before George W. Bush had left office. Stone himself had his own shot at Nixon in 1994, with Anthony Hopkins playing a perpetually drunk and continuously suspicious President Nixon. James Brolin portrayed an affable but out of touch Ronald Reagan in 2003’s The Reagans.

Let me ask you this: when was the last time a Democrat president was portrayed as anything but a seraph? I can never recall FDR as being depicted as anything less that a wise old grandfatherly type, although his tinkering with government policies prolonged the Great Depression for ten years. Kennedy practically got the United States blown off the map during the Cuban Missile Crisis, primarily because Khrushchev left his 1961 Vienna meeting with JFK knowing the young neophyte could be tested. It is also important to note that Kennedy increased US military presence in Vietnam from 800 to over 16,000.

Lyndon Johnson prolonged the Vietnam War and quit on the American people after discovering the situation would become worse before it would get better. Jimmy Carter came in with a bright smile and white teeth before expanding his own Misery Index from 12% to over 20%, as well as leaving our own citizens held hostage to the early Islamic Jihad in Iran. Bill Clinton spent more time unzipping his pants than zipping up Islamic aggression against the US.

Hey Opie, here’s a movie idea for you: why don’t you do one on each of the catastrophic messes that Democrat presidents have left for Republican presidents to clean up? I’d buy a ticket to each one.

Over the weekend at a Christmas party, I was in the company of several friends enjoying a good time with people I truly enjoy being around. At one point, a friend, whom I know is a Democrat, and another fellow and I were waiting for the dinner to begin. I made some crack about “running for governor of Illinois,” at which the Democrat friend began to expound on the great corruption of the political system in that state. My initial reaction was, “Wow, progress!” Then, in the next breath, I heard him utter the name “Obama.” I was almost giddy, convinced that the veil had been removed from his eyes and that he was about to have an old fashioned REVIVAL of common sense return.

Then, he finished his sentence: “tried to clean that whole mess up.” I stood there for a moment, like the girl who just gets the text message from her boyfriend, expecting terms of endearment, only to get a “We’re finished” message. Vertigo. Error. Unable to process. Redo from start.

If I had had a mouthful of coffee, I may have spewed it across the food. Had I been eating, I might have coughed it up and choked on it as some of it lodged in the back of my nasal passages. I’m almost surprised that he didn’t end the story with, “but those corrupt politicians turned on him and killed him. However, on the third day, he arose from the dead.”

I was once involved in the used car business. For the first few months, I tried to do everything in an honest and above board way. But, on more than one occasion, I heard the phrase “You can’t have a conscience and work in this business.” Slowly, surely, and with greater frequency, I began to compromise what was right and do what was wrong. This is not to excuse my decisions: they were mine, despite the pressure. I could have easily quit or refused to give in. But I didn’t. My point is, surrounded by bad company, good morals gave way.

So we are left to believe that our President-Elect was surrounded by people of questionable character, from William Ayers to Jeremiah Wright to Tony Rezko to Rod Blagojevich and yet he remained above the sewer and floated as an angel upon an astral plane as these characters rooted nose first in the muck of wickedness. Furthermore, without any credible or concrete documentation in even the most favorable of media outlets to back it up, my good Democrat friend wanted me to believe that the Most Merciful (may his name be praised) reached down from the heavenlies to the abode of mortal and immoral men to change their wicked ways.

Let us keep this in mind: our ethereal President-Elect wouldn’t even BE where he is without the political machine in his own home state. Illinois politics in general and Chicago politics specifically are coldblooded and heartless. Obama glided through like Barry Sanders playing for the Detroit Lions: stealthily and craftily and successfully, and yet was still part of the team. But it is impossible to be a part of something and not be affected by the surroundings. Even Sanders had his fill of a culture of losing and bad coaching and decided to no longer participate. The President-Elect? Ah, well, he tried to clean it all up, but he was just a victim of circumstance. I suppose this is what we have to look forward to as he tries to implement “Change We Can Believe In.” He’ll have plenty of built in excuses when it fails, and it certainly won’t be his fault.  He’s as clean and as pure as the wind driven snow.